Playing God: Churchill and Coventry, Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor

The most troublesome idea about Pearl Harbor is that Roosevelt knew the attack was coming and did not warn the commanders there. The idea is still unthinkable to many people, offensive to them whether they believe it or not. Carl Friedrich’s thesis that governments operate daily by conspiracy (making plans in secrecy, manipulating information, and covering up their acts)—although presented in many recent movies and vaguely accepted by most people—is still not taken very seriously, and particularly not when applied to the United States entry into World War II. Friedrich’s suggestion in The Pathology of Politics (1972)—that administration acts are often best described in a Machiavellian framework—runs counter to prevailing thought by which a nation’s myths are preserved and histories still feature good guys and bad guys, thereby serving a patriotic function.